Translation Symposium - Sept. 29 and 30
The Creative Writing Program's annual Symposium on Literature in Translation will bring together three distinguished writer-translators, Philip Metres (Russian), Kazim Ali (Persian and French), and Nathanaël (French and Portuguese).
Philip Metres has published several translations from Russian: I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky (forthcoming, Cleveland State 2014), The Compleat Catalogue of Comedic Novelties by Lev Rubinstein (forthcoming, Ugly Duckling Presse, 2014), Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein (Ugly Duckling 2004), and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (Zephyr 2003). Published collections of his own poetry include Sand Opera (Alice James, forthcoming 2015), To See the Earth (Cleveland State 2008), and many chapbooks. He also edited the anthology Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (University of Iowa Press, 2007). His writing–which has appeared widely, including in Best American Poetry–has garnered two NEA fellowships, the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, five Ohio Arts Council Grants, the Beatrice Hawley Award, the Anne Halley Prize, the Arab American Book Award, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and the Creative Workforce Fellowship (thanks to the Community Partnership of Arts and Culture). Lawrence Joseph has written that “PhilipMetres’s poetry speaks to us all, in ways critical, vital, profound, and brilliant.” His poems have been translated into Arabic, Polish, Russian, and Tamil. Metres is Professor of English at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Kazim Ali is a distinguished poet, essayist, fiction writer and translator. His published translations include published translations include Water's Footfall, poems by Sohrab Sepehri (Omnidawn Press, 2011), from the Persian, and (with Libby Murphy) a translation from the French, L'amour by Marguerite Duras (Open Letter Books, 2013). He has also published several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward (Wesleyan University Press, 2013), The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books' New England/New York Award, The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008), and the cross-°©‐genre text Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009). His novels include Quinn's Passage (blazeVox books), named one of "The Best Books of 2005" by Chronogram magazine and The Disappearance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009). His books of essays include Orange Alert: Essays on Poetry, Art and the Architecture of Silence (University of Michigan Press, 2010), and Fasting for Ramadan (Tupelo Press, 2011). In addition to co‐editing Jean Valentine: This World Company (University of Michigan Press, 2012), he is a contributing editor for AWP Writers’ Chronicle, associate editor of the literary magazine FIELD, and founding editor of the small press Nightboat Books. He is an associate professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College.
Nathanaël is the author of a score of books written in English or in French, including Sotto l'immagine (2014), Sisyphus, Outdone. Theatres of the Catastrophal (2012); the trilogy of notebooks, Carnet de désaccords (2009), Carnet de délibérations (2011), Carnet de somme (2012); and the essay of correspondence, Absence Where As (Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book) (2009), first published in French as L'absence au lieu (2007). Her work has been translated into Basque, Greek, Slovene, and Spanish (Mexico), with book-length publications in Bulgarian and Portuguese (Brazil), including the imminent Cadernos do meio after the aforementioned notebooks, following their English language iteration, The Middle Notebookes (2015). The recipient of the Prix Alain-Grandbois for ...s'arrête? Je (2008), Nathanaël's extrinsic translations include works by Édouard Glissant, Danielle Collobert, Catherine Mavrikakis, Hilda Hilst (in collaboration with Rachel Gontijo Araujo) and Hervé Guibert, her translation of whose journals, The Mausoleum of Lovers, has been recognized by fellowships from the PEN American Center and the Centre National du Livre de France. Nathanaël lives in Chicago.